Wicked

I realize I haven't written anything lately. Even though I was off work for two weeks (which was awesome by the way). I spent those days with friends, watching TV, reading books. I even took in a friends puppy as a foster mom for awhile until they figure things out. Puppies are awesome :)

I guess I've just had some writers block. I'm not sure what to talk about right now. There's a lot going on, but most of it I can't speak of on this forum. I know I said I'd stop with the JW stuff but I read a new article they just published this morning and I just can't ignore it. 

http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/w20150415/disfellowshipping-a-loving-provision/

They won't stop with this stuff. "Disfellowshipping: a loving provision"??

I don't even know where to start with this article, except with the amount of times they use the word "wicked". The Oxford English dictionary defines that word as "evil". Are we evil? 

I think I'm a pretty nice girl. My disfellowshipped friends? Lovely people. The article claims elders lovingly try to help these lost souls find their way back to the congregation. My experience? That's completely untrue. The elders on my committee would laugh at me when I tried to go back, say they were making "an example out of me". My husband, also an elder, would scream and swear and call me a sinner. 

My girlfriend tried to go back too. The elders would walk into their meetings with her and make jokes about how big their file on her was. I actually hate the fact that there's a file on me at Bethel with carefully written notes on the one thing I ever did wrong or against the rules. 

The article also talks about how to help and support family members of people who have been disfellowshipped. When I got kicked out, our best friends never once saw my husband or gave him any kind of support. For over a year. 

The last paragraph is the best - a sterling example of how if you just stick to this arrangement you can and will be successful in blackmailing your family member or friend into coming back to this crazy mind-control environment, because without you, they will be too sad and lonely to carry on. 

I don't judge anyone who makes the decision that this lifestyle if for them. It helps a lot of people, provides them with a sense of community and inclusion. But to whoever you are who wrote this article, you are sadly mistaken. This is not a loving provision. This is an attempt to manipulate and control people, to take away their freedom of thought and action. To deny them the chance to be who they are, to love who they choose, to be themselves and still have their family, who they desperately love, as a part of their life. You're not doing any favour to their family either...everyone loses in this situation. Their family is miserable, sad, struggling. And so are we. 

What they don't reference in the article is the one thing I'd like to mention. Yes, I'm sure, some people are so sad and lonely that they do whatever it takes to make their way back. But SO MANY of us don't. We find family, friends and acceptance out here in the real world. We realize that the Armageddon that has supposed to have been here for the last 100 years is never coming. That this life is what we've got and we're going to make the most of it. That the least loving "provision" in the world is disfellowshipping and...in the end, we're really not all that wicked. :)

Sullivan out.